


a whole world in here

by laskofresho



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Bed-Wetting, Child Abuse, Coercion, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Humiliation, Isolation, M/M, Unfortunate Implications
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 13:34:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11760969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laskofresho/pseuds/laskofresho
Summary: “I’m lonely, Rick,” he mumbled.“It's a pretty big, lonely existence out there, Morty.”





	a whole world in here

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place sometime after S03E03.

Morty woke up damp and disoriented not for the first time that week. For a moment he just laid there frowning, his clammy hand over his face. He realized he’d forgotten to put down a towel, so tired from yet another one of the adventures Rick had dragged him out on. The mattress would be soaked through. Great.

Sitting up, Morty rubbed his eyes, then started his almost nightly routine. Strip the mattress, lean it up sideways to dry out, wipe himself down and change into fresh pajamas, bundle everything into a ball and take the journey down to the garage to put it all in the laundry without waking anyone up. At least he wasn’t falling asleep and pissing himself in class, that was always worse.

He didn’t know why this had to happen to him now. He was fourteen, for Pete’s sake, not four. Shame crawled up inside of him, sat at the base of his throat. He just hoped nobody heard him, and prayed to whatever god there was that Rick wasn’t still in the garage.

Steeling himself, he took his bundle down the stairs, avoiding the creaky top stair. Mom had left the door to her bedroom open, and he spared a glance inside. She hadn’t even taken off her clothes from the day, and had passed out face-down on Dad’s side of the bed with an empty bottle of wine on the floor. 

The door out to the garage was closed, and Morty sucked in a calming breath, forcing his expression neutral. His fingers were shaking a little when he reached for the handle, and he released the breath he didn’t realize he was holding when he found himself looking at the back of Rick’s white lab coat.

Great.

Feigning nonchalance, and a little annoyed that Rick didn’t even turn around to look at him, he went to the washing machine and started throwing his bundle into the machine. 

“Again, Morty?” said Rick. He had that tone, that tone that he got when he’d gone from his usual state of inebriated straight into shitfaced. Morty had gotten pretty good at telling the difference. “Jesus, you and your piss kink.”

Don’t take the bait. Don’t take the bait. He reached for the laundry soap, giving it a sniff to make sure Rick hadn’t replaced it with flaxxon bile like he had that one time. It smelled okay, so he dumped it into the load, then turned the dial.

“At least you’re not doing it at school again, then, I guess because— _urrp_ — that’s pretty disgusting if you’re non-consensually forcing all those, uh, those innocent students to be a part of your nasty fetish, Morty.”

Morty finally turned his glare on Rick, who’d turned to look at him, leaning against the work table with that loose grin plastered on his face. He had his flask in hand, as usual, a screwdriver he was bouncing in his opposite palm. An experiment lay half-finished behind him, all jagged metal and blinking lights, things Morty didn’t understand.

“Aw, jeez, Rick, i-i-it’s not like— it’s not like I _want_ this to happen!” Morty said. It sounded tougher in his head, but he’d just gone an embarrassing shade of scarlet, his hands curled into fists at his side. 

“Could’ve— could’ve fooled me, Morty— I’ve seen your browser history.” He waved the screwdriver, taking another swig out of his flask. “Learn to use an incognito tab sometime this century, idiot.”

Rick turned his back to him again. At least he didn’t have to see the angry tears gathering in the corner of Morty’s eyes. His laptop was his sanctuary, and yet he always knew somewhere in the back of his mind that Rick was going to invade and conquer what little privacy he had left.

Ever since Dad had moved out it just felt like he was being shoved further into a corner, limitations set at every turn. Mom didn’t try to stop Rick from taking him out on adventures, ripping him out of school, out of his life, even if he went missing for days on end. She acted like it didn’t even register that he was missing, but she always greeted Rick with a smile and a cold beer.

He swallowed, slamming the lid of the top-loader a little too hard as the water started to fill. He crossed his arms, obstinate, wanting to retaliate in some way. Hurting Rick in any way that mattered was almost impossible, though. He was better off just going back to bed for a good cry on his wet, piss-reeking mattress. Alone.

Morty started back towards the door. He stopped as something hit him square in the shoulders, before clattering to the ground. He looked down, finding a crushed beer can on the ground, the kind Dad liked. 

“Recycle that for me, won’t ya, Mort?”

“You d-didn’t have to throw it at me. Y-y-you could’ve just asked.” 

Maybe Rick wanted him to stay. Pausing, he reached down to pick it up, then walked the short distance over towards Rick to put it in the bin. Standing beside his grandpa, he looked over at the machine he was working on. “What are you working on, anyway, Rick?” he asked, in a small voice. 

“It’s a device, Morty, to automatically drain _all_ the piss out of your bladder so you stop interrupting my work on a nightly basis,” Rick deadpanned, not looking at him. “Gettin’ reeeeeal tired of you barging in here all the time.”

Or not. Morty’s lower lip jutted out. “Hey, now— s-stop messing with me, Rick.”

He turned on Morty then, with a giant, mean-looking syringe. “Ready for the dry run?”

Morty jumped back as Rick advanced on him, eyes round and straining as he stared at the length of the needle. “Rick! Don’t—”

Rick started laughing, spit flying, shutting Morty up. He jabbed the syringe into his own neck, instead, pressing the plunger with his long, spidery fingers, the clear fluid going straight into his jugular. Morty stared at him, wide-eyed and horrified, as his grandpa started to change, sprouting large leathery wings out from his shoulder blades, his pupils blackening out most of his eyes. He rustled them idly, his closed wingspan taking up the greater part of the garage. Blood trickled down the back of his labcoat, staining the white fabric a deep red.

“Rick! Y-y-you have _wings!”_

He twisted off the cap of his flask, taking a long dreg. “Wow, Morty, way to— urrp— way to state the obvious.”

He’d stopped trying to make sense of why Rick did anything a long time ago. He’d learned the hard way that his universe didn’t play by any rules. Morty just always seemed to be caught in the blast radius of whatever destruction Rick wanted to enact. 

Rick grinned at him, this unhinged thing. He reached a hand out. “What do ya say, Morty? Ready for your Princess Jasmine moment?”

He reached for Rick’s hand without thinking.

“R-ready for my wha _aaaaaaaaAAAAHHHH—”_

They left behind a spectacular hole in the garage roof. Morty screamed the whole way up, quieting down only once they were in the clouds, the air too thin for him to keep going at full volume. It only took him a moment to relax, after he got over being annoyed.

Clinging to Rick’s hands, he looked downward to the earth. Everything looked so small. It was small. His problems were small. Everything was so insignificant, so pointless. He started to relax, swinging listlessly in his grandpa’s grip as he led them through the sky, his wings beating hard against the air.

“You trust me, right, Morty?”

“Not when y-y-you ask me like that, Rick.”

“But you like this, don’t you? Looking down on the rest of the human race, just you and grandpa, huh, Morty?”

“It’s kinda cool up here,” he admitted, looking down at the lights of the cities below. “Everything’s small.”

It was pretty, Earth. They didn’t spend much time looking at his earth this way, far above, other worlds to explore. He’d seen a lot in his short life, but home never got any less beautiful. Terrifying, but beautiful.

“Well, I think now’s a good a time as any.”

“A good time for what?” he asked, 

Rick chuckled. “A good time to tighten those pelvic muscles, little buddy.”

Eyes widening as he realized what was about to happen, he gripped down, trying to hold on as Rick dropped him. He didn’t anticipate the strong kick to his chest, before he was falling down, down, _down,_ his vision going dark as he hurtled back towards home. He didn’t feel afraid, he realized. He felt free.

But he never hit the ground.

When he woke up, he was disoriented, but dry. He rubbed his eyes, looking around in the darkness, unsure if he’d dreamed it all. Whatever weird science experiment Rick was doing, he obviously hadn’t been an intended variable. If it had even happened. At least he hadn’t pissed himself in his sleep again.

He reached around for his lamp, but quickly realized he wasn’t in his own room. He was in Rick’s. Alone.

He laid there for a moment, trying to figure out if his memories were lying to him or not, before throwing the scratchy green blanket back, and scurrying back upstairs. He stole a cursory glance into Mom’s room on instinct, and found her curled up on her side, in her pajamas. The wine bottle was gone. 

When he got to his room, his mattress was dry, the bed made. As he laid down he tried his best not to think about it.

* * *

“—and that’s why my second husband left me. Don’t vaccinate your children, kids, it leads to divorce and autism and— Morty. Morty? Morty Smith, wake up right now.”

He grumbled. Around him, the sound of quiet laughter.

“Mr. Smith. Wake up.” 

He felt someone shake at his shoulder. Morty snorted, lifting his head, eyes half-open. He shot upright as he realized where he was, shit, his lap felt wet and everyone was staring at him again. Oh, God. His face went a deep shade of red as it sunk in that it had happened again, and he covered his face in his hands. 

Ms. Bean, his English teacher, sighed and looked around at her class through her narrow, horn-rimmed glasses. “Quiet, now. You can laugh when he’s gone.” They continued to whisper to themselves as she motioned Morty to stand up. He tried his best to cover himself with his books, to limited success. “Let’s go, young man.”

The crotch of his pants clung to him as he was walked out of class. He could hear the other students bursting out into laughter behind him, and he had to bite the inside of his lip to force himself not to cry. Crying would just make it worse.

They made it to his locker, where he could at least tie a sweater around himself. At least it covered some of the wetness. He just wanted to go home. He just wanted to crawl into himself and stop existing.

Instead, Ms. Bean gripped his shoulder with her gnarled fingers, and led him to the guidance counselor's office. He started to cringe. “M-M-Ms. Bean, I don’t—”

“Now, Morty, I’m under strict instruction to bring you here in the event of another incident,” she said passively. “This can’t keep happening. Myself and the other faculty agree that you’re a distraction to the other students.”

“I-I-I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” she said, opening the door ahead of him.

He’d met the school counselor a few times since this whole thing had started. She’d been the one to demand family therapy, but obviously it hadn’t worked since it just kept happening to him. She was nice, at least, young, with dark auburn hair and cleavage that he felt too guilty, too childish to look at. 

“Ah, Morty. Thank you for bringing him, Leslie,” said Counselor Dyke. Her big blue eyes, crinkled in the corners with a smile, were warm and welcoming. “Come inside.”

Mrs. Bean seemed glad to be rid of him at least, the door rattling in its old hinges as she closed it behind her.

Morty sat down gingerly in the chair opposite her desk, his thighs sticking to the inside of his jeans. He kept his head down as she reached for his file, before sitting down to flip it open.

“That’s the second time this week… hm,” Ms. Dyke murmured, writing something down. She looked back up at him. “How have the family counseling sessions been going?” 

They hadn’t been going. “U-uh-uh, they’ve been, y’know, fine. Just fine.”

She wrote something down in her file, eyes down. “And how are things at home? I know your parents are separating... is there anything you want to talk to me about?”  


“No, ma’am. Everything’s fine.”

She flipped a page, the corners of her lips turning downward. “It says here your maternal grandfather lives with your family?”

“Yeah...”

She tapped her pen against the paper. “That must’ve created tension between your parents.”

“I guess. They’ve always been kinda—” Morty said, shrugging. He looked away. “Whatever. Nevermind.”

She wrote down a few notes, before looking up at him. “Do you like having your grandpa around, Morty?”

"Last week he turned himself into a pickle."

"But do you like having him around?"

Morty smiled wanly. “Uh, y-yeah. I spend lots of time alone with my grandpa.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Alone?”

“Y-y-yeah, but we’re just doing, y’know, _normal_ grandpa and grandson things,” he said, his mouth starting to run. He could never seem to stop when he got nervous. “Like fighting aliens, space terrorism, and interdimensional time hopping. Ha ha, like way normal, totally normal, ma’am, don’t even t-trip, dawg.”

Counselor Dyke looked at him with an expression that made him feel weird, squirmy inside. Like he’d said something _wrong._

“He’s never done anything to make you feel uncomfortable, has he?” She paused, before gesturing with a hand, elaborating. “Physically, or emotionally or… in another way?”

Morty didn’t know how to tell her that he felt uncomfortable all of the time. That he needed every second he spent with Rick, no matter how terrifying or horrible. He loved and hated every moment. Every kind word or compliment made him feel like something special, precious, and every slight like the end of his world.

When he didn’t answer, she reached into her desk, pulling out one of her cards. “Well, Morty, if you ever need someone to talk to, my number is here.”

He took it from her hands, sliding it into his pocket, fully intending to throw it away before he made it home. “Great, uh. Can I go?” 

She nodded. He practically ran out of her office.

* * *

Dinner, for the third night in a row, was a half-cooked frozen pizza. The dough was cold in the middle, but he didn’t complain. Mom was on her fourth glass of wine, a dark look on her face as the two of them sat at the table, alone.

He didn’t know where Rick was. Summer, no idea.

“H-how was work, Mom?” he asked, around a mouthful of lukewarm pepperoni. 

“It was work, Morty,” she answered, flatly. She reached for the bottle, topping up her glass.

“O-oh.” 

He stared at the table, shoving another huge bite of pizza into his mouth. When he swallowed, it sat in his stomach like a rock, his guts tight and uncomfortable. He didn’t want to tell his mom about his accident, didn’t want to tell her about another trip to the counselor’s office. 

Morty didn’t know how to talk to his mom anymore. He was mad at her, if he was being honest with himself, but he was never going to tell her that. Even if they’d fought all the time, before, it wasn’t fair of her to give up on Dad. It wasn’t fair of her to throw their family away just to be closer to Rick, who didn’t even deserve it, who didn’t even—

“What’s with— what’s with that look on your face, huh?” Mom said, guttural, leaning heavily on the table to glower at him. She cleared her throat, sweetening her tone, her face going soft. “Morty, honey, what’s the matter, sweetie?”

He put the slice of pizza back on his plate, staring down at it, the glass of milk he’d had to pour himself. “You and Dad…” he started, his lower lip starting to quiver, “You’re not getting back together, are you?”

Mom reached for her wine glass almost reflexively. She took a long gulp before responding. “No, Morty, we aren’t.”

Because she didn't want to risk losing Rick.

“C-can he come over to the house, sometimes?”

“No.”

Because Rick didn’t want Jerry around. 

His eyes started to water. “Y-y-you don’t— don’t you love Dad anymore?”

She stared across the table, to the chair Dad had occupied for years, the one Rick had taken over since he’d been gone. 

“To tell you the truth, I don’t think I ever loved your father, Morty.”

Morty cracked, the tears starting to fall. His hands curled into fists in his lap. “Y-y-you still love me, though, right, Mom?”

Her face crumbled, and she swooped in, holding in her arms, his face pressed into her breasts. “Oh, honey, _Morty,_ of course I still love you. Don’t cry, honey.”

He choked back sobs, soaking the front of Mom’s shirt. “Do you l-l-love me more than— more than Grandpa Rick?”

She didn’t answer. Her hand rubbed at his back.  


“Stop crying, honey. It's okay.”

Morty shed silent tears, until it felt like his bones were about to break from how hard he was holding back. He was just shaking by the end of it, and Mom had already long left him, taking her wine glass to the other room as he curled up on the kitchen chair, willing himself to stop.  


Predictably, he pissed the bed that night. He couldn’t even bring himself to get up, and slept there in the dampness knowing that he didn’t deserve any better.

* * *

“Hey, Summer, adventure. Let’s— _uurrrp_ — let’s go, Sum-Sum, let’s move it.”

“No, Grandpa Rick, I’m meeting some friends later,” she said, not looking up from her phone. 

Rick scowled, Morty wringing his hands beside him. “Full offense, Summer, sweetie, but your friends are fucking lame.”

She glanced over her shoulder, ponytail swinging, looking for Mom. Turning back to Rick, she grinned. “Come on, Grandpa, I thought you’d be proud of me. We’re gonna be 420- _blazin’_ it.”

“Oh shiiit, dawg, don’t let me stop you from gettin’ yo— _urrp_ —ur smoke on.” 

“Thanks for picking up for me, Grandpa,” she said, with a smile. “Everyone thinks you’re so totally cool for doing that.”

“Well I wasn’t gonna let my favorite granddaughter huff enamel, for shit’s sake. If you're gonna get high it should be with _actual_ drugs. Have fun, sweetie.” Grabbing the front of Morty’s shirt, Rick dragged him towards the garage. “Looks like it’s just you and me, Morty, just like old times!”

Summer returned to her phone, giving a little wave with it. “Try not to totally destroy any galaxies without me, guys.”

“I make nooooo promises,” said Rick, shoving Morty forward through the garage door. Morty stopped, standing stock straight, even as Rick shoved at him again. “What’s with you? It’s an adventure, Morty, get hype!”

Morty righted himself, scowling, as he started towards the spaceship, parked surreptitiously in the corner of the garage. “Do I h-h-have a choice? Can I even say no?” He was so tired, having forced himself to stay awake for the past few nights. He didn’t want to risk another accident.

“What, like you’ve got something better to do?” Rick climbed in the driver’s side door, Morty following suit. “You don’t _have_ any friends, Morty.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong. Morty slouched down on himself, as Rick started up the ship, waiting for the garage door to open. “Really oughta— o-oughta make that open faster,” he muttered, pulling out his flask as the door groaned on its hinges.

“What are we even— what are we gonna do today, Rick?” Morty asked. The answer didn’t even really matter. Rick probably wouldn’t even tell him.

“The same thing we do every day, Morty,” said Rick, taking a deep swig, “Make it up as we go along.”

* * *

From the safety of the ship, Morty gazed down on what remained of the Disapa system. The swirling vortex was so dark inside it was spellbinding, made him dizzy. Rick didn’t even seem phased, kicking his feet up on the dashboard as he drained the last of his flask. 

“Technically it’s not a galaxy,” said Rick, conversationally. 

“Rick, we just— we-we-we just killed billions of people. I’m not really sure it matters what classification it is anymore.”

Still. It was beautiful, the stars being slowly pulled into the nothingness, a slow spiral of beautiful void. He could stare into it forever.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Rick flung his flask into the back of the spaceship, the metal pinging off against the interior. He gripped the wheel, throwing them around in a circle as he started to fly away. “None of this shiiiiiiiit matters!”

Morty didn’t feel like arguing it. Nothing he said would matter, either. Instead, he leaned his head back, closing his eyes, willing it away.

“We didn’t even cause that, Morty, so don’t get all guilty on me. If the Disaprincess didn’t wig out and to-totally— _eeurrpp_ — totally hit the black hole button, everything would’ve been fine.”

He wanted to point out that it wouldn’t have happened at all if Rick hadn’t been there in the first place, trying to start an interplanetary war to reap their resources. Still, he didn’t say that.

“I guess, Rick.”

“Come on Morty, you know a little mindless destruction is wayyyy more useful than having to talk to some shitty, under qualified school counselor about your _feeelings_. Quit moping already, live a little.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t know how Rick had found out about his little trip to the counselor. He didn’t want to know.

Morty turned away from him, crossing his arms over his chest. He was so tired. Tired of adventures, tired of his home life, tired of everything. Part of him wished he’d just been sucked into the emptiness of space. Part of him knew that if that happened, Rick would just go find another Morty, anyway. 

“Who the f— _urrp_ —uck makes a black hole button anyway. Almost like whoever’s behind it came up with a stupid plot device for a cheap joke and a dumbass segue.”

“Whatever, Rick,” mumbled Morty, his eyes starting to feel heavy. “I don’t care.”

He drifted off. None of it mattered, anyway.

By the time he woke up, it was light out, and the ship had stopped moving. He blinked bleary eyes, sitting upright in his seat, instantly realizing that— 

Oh, God, no. Rick was going to kill him. 

He glanced around for his grandpa, but it seemed like he was gone, had left him there alone. A cursory glance to the planet outside, which seemed to have three suns that were oscillating over the horizon, big stretches of plant life that indicated oxygen. He opened the side door, practically throwing himself out, panic building up in his chest at the thought of Rick finding out.

He had to dry off somehow. He undid the button of his pants, drawing down the fly to strip them off. Standing there in his shirt, underwear and shoes, he felt stupid, but it was warm enough that he might be able to dry off his pants. He laid them out over the hood of the ship, before reaching inside to try to deal with the seat.

“Jesus, Morty, seriously?”

Morty shot back, holding his hands up in surrender as Rick regarded him dully, some sort of metal box in hand. He put his other hand to his face, dragging it down his mouth. “I leave you alone for, what, five— five, uh, _space minutes_ and you piss your little panties?” 

Rick ducked his head in, taking a deep sniff of the spaceship as he tossed the box inside. “Jesus, it fuckin’ reeks in here.”

“R-R-Rick, I didn’t mean—”  


“No shit, Morty, I know you didn’t _mean it_ , you’re just too stupid to help yourself.” He walked around to the other side to pop open the driver’s side door as Morty quivered by himself on the passenger’s side. “Gonna have to let this— _eurrp_ — let this thing air out for awhile, smells like a skeezy Russian whorehouse in here.”

He came back around to the other side, to where Morty was staring at the ground. “Can’t believe you just took off your pants like that. What if we were on like, I don’t know, uh, a planet solely inhabited by pedophiles and your tightie whities are just like, a b— _urrrp_ —eacon for kiddie fuckers in a hundred space mile radius, huh?”

Morty finally looked up at him. “Rick, w-why would we be on a planet full of pedophiles?”

“Hey, MAPs need somewhere to live, too, M-M-Morty, don’t be so close-minded.” Rick shrugged, producing a second flask out of his lab coat from apparently nowhere. “We aren’t, though.”  


“W-w-we aren’t what, Rick?”

“On a planet full of— there— there’s nobody here but me and you, you idiot,” he said, a little harshly. He turned to face Morty, gesturing. “Are your pants dry yet?”

Morty frowned, turning to reach over where they were laid out. He pressed a hand down on the crotch. “N-no, not yet.”

“What’s with you, lately, anyway?” He had moved in close, close enough that Morty could feel his breath on the side of his face. He smelled like pure alcohol, like evil incarnate. “You’re kinda crampin’ my style, Mort, crying and— _eourgh_ — pissing yourself all the time. Is everything okay, Morty?”

Rage crashed down on him in an instant at that condescending tone, and his hands snapped out before he could help himself. He shoved at Rick, knocking him a foot back. “Shut up, Rick! You _know_ this is your fault!”

It was the closest he’d come to confronting Rick about it. About making Dad go away. About manipulating everything in his favor, the way he always did.

“ _My_ fault? I’m not the one forcing you to wet your pants on command, Morty. That’s all you.”

“Y-y-y-you told me I had to do what you say, _forever_ , so— so— you might as well have said it! You probably did something t-to my brain to make me do it, s-s-somehow!”

Rick’s face went flat. “And you think, in my infinite wisdom, I would use my ownership of your mind, body and soul, Morty, to I don’t know— hypnotize you into pissing yourself at inopportune moments for my own amusement?”

Morty stood up tall, put his shoulders back. “I— I don’t know, R-Rick! Maybe!? It does sound like something you’d do!”

Rick chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right, it does.”

Again, Morty shoved him. Rick grabbed for his wrists, holding them with bruising force. “I h-hate you, Rick!”

“Yeah, sure, blame me. Have you ever thought that maybe you’re just a pussy, Morty?”

“Maybe I am, Rick, but at least I’m not a total _monster!”_

They stood there in the wake of Morty’s words, Morty panting with anger, shaking as he stood, his wrists in Rick’s brutal grip. He wanted to beat the shit out of his grandfather, to make him hurt the way _he_ was hurting. He wanted to— 

He started crying. Great, wracking sobs, the kind he had shoved deep down inside himself since Dad had moved out. He couldn’t make them stop, trying to cover his face, even as Rick’s hands gripped down on his wrists, moving them away from his face.

“It’s okay, Morty,” said Rick, crouching down to his level. When Morty looked at him, Rick was just looking back, his expression open with something akin to wonderment. “It’s okay, baby, you’re okay.”

He sniffed wetly, the sobs starting anew. He could feel snot and saliva running down his face, his eyes red and puffy as he kept going, unable to hide away as Rick held his wrists at his side. 

When it finally stopped, Rick let his hands go. Morty wiped at his face awkwardly, pulling his shirt up to catch most of it. He felt so stupid. Still, Rick’s face was devoid of any of its earlier sneer.

“Feel better?” asked Rick, his voice soft. He opened his arms. “Wanna give your old grandpa a hug?”

He _did_ want a hug. Uneasily, Morty stepped into his Rick’s arms. When Rick actually hugged him his heart did a little twist, and he wrapped his arms around Rick’s waist, his fingers curling into his lab coat tightly.

Morty felt bad. He was mad at Rick, but. At least Rick spent time with him. 

“Sorry, Rick,” he muttered, drawing away. Rick held on a moment longer, before finally loosening his hold.

“Don’t be sorry, Morty. Never say you’re sorry.” He set his hands on Morty’s slim shoulders, his hands cold yet comforting. “What d-do ya say— _urrp_ — we get some ice cream, huh?”

A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “S-sure, Rick, I’d like that.”

“Might wanna put your pants on first. Place I’m thinking, well, I’m _not_ saying it’s a planet full of pedophiles, but you might wanna watch out for unmarked white vans. Best rocky road in the galaxy, though, heyo!”

He glanced downward, realizing he’d been hugging his grandfather in his damp, see-through underwear. He’d made that entire scene half-dressed. Morty’s face heated, and he scrambled for where they were laid out on the front of the ship.

He was damp and uncomfortable, but as they lifted off the planet in the light of the setting suns, Morty couldn’t help but think maybe things were going to get better. 

At least until the planet exploded beneath them. The ship shook with the force of it. “Rick! Wh-what the hell was that!?”

“Obviously I blew up a planet, idiot. There’s a— _urrrp_ — a valuable space ore in the center of that big ole’ dense ass rock, Morty. I need it. For science.” Rick reached behind his seat, pulling out a glass helmet that he forced over Morty’s head before he could realize what was happening. It expanded, a metal form sliding down over his spine, around his arms, his legs, a rope lead coming out the back that Rick fisted his hand into. “It’s bright blue, sparkly, just like your mom’s eyes. You can’t miss it.”

Rick reached past him to pop open the passenger door, Morty babbling in confusion as he started to panic. Rick handed him a comically large sack, his hands gripping it reflexively. “R-Rick, I thought you said—”

“I say a lot of things, Morty.”

Morty opened his mouth to protest, but found himself shoved outside, into the darkness of space. Ore and pieces of the shattered planet hurtled past him. He started to hyperventilate. He didn’t really want to float off into the void.

Still, Rick was holding onto him. Rick wasn’t letting go. 

“Hurry up, Moo— _oourgh_ —oorty!” said Rick, into his helmet, filling up his entire world. “That ice cream ain’t gonna eat itself!”

As he looked out into infinite, into the deepness of endless space, Morty let out a weak laugh. All that nothingness out there and this was the best he could do. This was all there was for him, Rick holding him together by a thread as he hung out there alone.

* * *

_‘how to kill grandpa, nicely’_

Google had hundreds of results for painless euthanasia. Morty scowled at his laptop, the light from the screen casting his face in blue-white in the darkness. He’d gone down the Google spiral while trying to keep himself awake, and he’d run out of cat gifs early on.

_‘grandpa makes me sad and happy at the same time’_

That brought back a news story about a sad grandpa eating a burger alone, ditched by his grandchildren. That just made him feel worse. The thought of Rick eating alone made him feel like shit, but also a little like revenge. 

He sighed, backspacing and just typed out what he felt instead.

_‘god i wish this would end. I hate my family i hate myself i wish i didn’t exist. I wish my dad would come back. Grandpa makes me feel weird’_

Suicide hotlines. Resources for depression. Websites on alcohol and drug abuse. Websites on physical, emotional, sexual abuse. 

He backspaced quickly, frowning at the screen. Still. He scrolled downward to one of the pages about abuse and clicked, trying not to think about it too hard. He didn’t think about what the counselor at school or the family therapist said.

Morty read. 

A slow curl of dread started inside him, the more he read. Some of it didn’t apply, sure, most of it didn’t apply, whatever, his family was just like everyone else’s family. A little messy. Normal. He was normal. Maybe on the more intergalactic scale, but none of this was useful, his family was _normal._  


Still. He kept reading. When he got to the sexual abuse section, he closed his laptop screen in reaction. He opened it again, and read to a level of obsession, getting into the sections incest, the different types of sexual abuse.

He read sections over and over to make certain. Sure, Rick had made him hide things in his ass, once, twice, a few times. That had been practical. Rick wasn’t like that. Rick had bought him a sex doll. All those Mortys in that dome, naked and suffering and— and— his Rick frequently got high and drunk around him, had had sex with a hive mind around him, had made him a love potion that had Cronenberg’d their world, but, but— Rick isolated him, Rick made him feel important and worthless at once, and it wasn’t like Rick had any boundaries but— but Rick wasn’t _like that._

He’d gotten a half-chub, for some reason. Then, he was opening up PornHub, browsing.

Somehow he ended up on the gay section. There was no reason for it. None at all. He jerked one out with his fingers behind his balls watching some eighteen year old twink get railed by an old wrinkly guy, and he definitely didn’t feel ashamed about it. It wasn’t enough so he found some fisting porn, a footjob, some guys pissing on another guy and then his orgasm hit him like a freight train. Jizz shot up to his chin with the force of it. He felt tired all of a sudden.

He slammed his laptop shut and tucked it under his bed. Wiping himself off with a dirty pair of underwear, he righted his clothing, laid down over the blankets to rest his eyes. He was just resting his eyes. He wasn’t going to fall—

—when he woke up, someone was in the room with him. This wasn’t even the first time it had happened. Morty stayed motionless, as Rick wavered from side to side at the end of his bed, drunk as all hell and reeking of it. He wondered if he was about to get a knife to the throat.

“Rick,” he chanced, quietly. “W-what are you doing in my room?”

“Incognito browser, M— _uourrgh_ —orty. Look into it.”

His face went hot.

“Why’re you looking— lookin’ up that stuff, Morty?” His face was shadowed, lit only by moonlight from the window. “You wanna kill Grandpa?”

“A-are you spying on me?” he snapped, instead.

“You want to piss on Grandpa?”

“W-what!? No!”

“Is it even technically spying if you do it right in the open like that?”

“You don’t ha-have any boundaries, do you?” chanced Morty, feeling bold all of a sudden. Rick had him cornered in his own bedroom, but for some reason, he felt brave. “You don’t care what I want. You don’t care if it hurts me. You just want to c-c-control me.”

“Morty, every time you even attempt to stutter it out, _‘n-nooo, Rick, nooo, wahh, noo,’”_ he imitated, pitching his voice higher. Morty inwardly cringed. It sounded just like him, “You know you don’t mean it. You know it’s just fear holding you back. You wouldn’t— _urrp_ — you wouldn’t have— you wouldn’t _be_ who you are today without me, Morty. You’d be _spineless_ , without _loyalty_ , just like your piece-of-shit father. You _need_ me.”

Morty stared at his grandfather in the shadows. He sucked in a sharp breath.

“I-is there a universe where you kill me for disobeying, Rick? Where you kill me for betraying you?” 

“There’s a universe where you cross me and face the consequences, sure, yeah, Morty. What is this all about, huh?”

“Is there a universe where you— where you _rape_ me?”

His grandpa’s face twisted, his brow lowering, pulling the rest of his face down with it. He just looked at him with that awful expression, making Morty tense up in dawning horror.

“You w-wouldn’t do that though, would you?” he asked, hesitantly.

“Jesus Christ, Morty, who the hell do y-you think I am?” he spat. “I’m not _that_ evil. I wouldn’t force you to do anything like that.”

Morty stared at him, wide-eyed. Rick looked away for the first time. 

“But you’re— you’re not, like, opposed to it?” he asked, quietly. “If it— if it wasn’t _forced.”_

“What, like a-a-a little consensual, underage, intergenerational incest is the worst thing I could do? We destroyed a solar system, like, two days ago. Give me a break, Morty.”

Morty stared at him for a moment longer, before lying down. It was too much. His head was spinning. He could hear Rick’s ragged breathing in the darkness, so he just shoved himself under his blankets, pulling them over his head.  


“Goodnight, Rick,” he said. 

His grandpa didn’t leave, at first. Not immediately. 

“Good _night,_ Rick,” he said a second time.

He clenched his eyes shut. He didn’t want to cry himself to sleep again. 

When he woke up, it wasn’t in his own bed. He was alone, in Rick’s. The blanket was green and scratchy, smelled like alcohol and vomit. His pajamas, and his eyes were mercifully dry.

* * *

Summer passed the flask back to her grandpa. “Thanks for bringing us here, Grandpa Rick. We needed this.” She looked out to the sky, patterned with stars, making visible constellations that moved and danced. Rick had started drinking early during their little light show, and Summer had whined at him until he’d given her just a sip, which turned into sharing the flask evenly between them.

“Told you so, Summer,” said Rick, with a loud belch. He leaned back in his lawn chair, staked out in the sand. 

The entire tiny planet was covered in water, save for a little oasis made entirely out of star particles. It was almost blinding, the way the light would catch the ground, reflecting back on the cool blue water. 

Summer sighed. “I’ve totally never seen anything like this before. It’s beautiful.”

Rick looked over his shoulder, finding Morty sitting between them on the ground, staring out into nothingness. “Morty? You’re— _eurrrp_ — unusually quiet.”

Seated behind them on a plane made entirely of tiny, twinkling starburst, Morty kicked his legs out in front of him. He ran his hand through the star sand, watching it trickle through his fingers. Tiny pieces of something bigger. One alone was imperceptible, but together they made something extraordinary, something few people would ever have the privilege of seeing.

He only looked up when Rick touched his shoulder. Rick was looking down at him with an expression he didn’t quite recognize. 

“Hey, look!” said Summer, standing up out of her chair. She immediately fell to her knees, drunker than she’d realized, laughing as she dug her hands into the sand. “Holy _shit!”_

In the distance, a massive whale half the size of the planet peaked out of the water, its mouth rising high towards the stars. It sang its whalesong, the sound humming over the water, loud as a foghorn in the utter silence. Summer called out as it crashed down into the rise of waves, disappearing back into the blue, it’s tail waving high above. Morty stood to watch, the stars so bright in the distance that he almost had to cover his eyes. Sea spray hit their faces, the waves crashing onto the sand, catching starlight.

He felt more than saw Rick beside him. A hand settled between his shoulder blades.

“See, Morty,” said Rick, in his ear, low enough that Summer wouldn’t hear him over her revelry, “it could be like this forever.”

A hundred years, Rick and Morty. A thousand years. 

In that moment, Rick’s fingers digging into his spine, the stars whiting out the night sky above, it really did feel like forever.

* * *

“Hi, son.”

“Hi, Dad.”

On the other end of the line, Jerry cleared his throat. “H-h-how are things at the house?”

“Oh, uh, y’know. They’re okay, Dad.”

“Well, Morty, obviously, I _don’t_ know because your mother said I’m not allowed to be there! What a bitch, huh!” Dad laughed almost manically on the other side of the phone. “Sorry, excuse that. I shouldn’t talk to you about your mother like that. I don’t mean to, I’m just a little, ahem, _emotional.”_

“It’s okay, Dad.”

“It’s pretty shitty not being able to come back to my own home. I hate living in this apartment, Morty, I hate eating this crappy food. I want to come home.”

Morty leaned against the wall, crossing one arm over himself protectively as his father continued on the other end of the line. 

“You should talk to your mother for me, Morty. She won’t listen to me at all. Rick is a bad influence on her, a bad influence on you kids, and— and I’m worried! He should be in this shitty apartment eating ninety-cent noodles out of a pot, not me! Even if they’re some damn tasty noodles!”

“Sure, Dad,” said Morty.

“How is your mom doing anyway, huh? Is she sad?” His voice went small and hesitant. “Does she miss me, Morty?”

He thought of Mom, drunk laughing at the television with Rick, his arm draped around the back of the couch. He thought of Mom, passed out face-down in her bed, Summer trying to roll her deadweight onto her side. Mom, in last night’s makeup chugging coffee in the morning, late for work for the second time that week. He thought about Dad, how he _never_ fought for them, had _never_ fought for anything in his life.

Morty’s eyes clenched shut. “I-I don’t—”

“Tell your mom she owes me more visitations, M-Morty, and _alimony,_ Morty. Tell her I hate her. Tell her it’s her fault if you and your sister end up on drugs. Tell her th-that her father will _never_ need her the way I do. Tell her I miss her, Morty, and I love her, tell her—”

He hung up the phone. Accidentally. 

When Dad tried calling back, once, twice, five times, he pretended not to hear it.

* * *

“Hey, are you ignoring Dad, too?”

Morty stopped on the top stair, looking to where Summer was laying on her stomach on her bed with her phone in her hands. She kicked her socked feet lazily, a half-smile on her face even if her eyes looked hollow and tired. Her laptop was open on the bed in front of her, on some makeup tutorial or another. 

“He’s been sending some really annoying texts,” Summer said, waving said phone. “Teaching him how to use emojis might’ve been a bad idea.”

He walked tentatively into her room, propping himself up against her bed. “Wh-what’s he saying?”

She turned her phone to face him, but didn’t let him touch it, like usual. Morty squinted, leaning down to look.

She dragged her phone away before he could finish reading. “I don’t know what to say to him anymore.”

Morty’s face fell. He held himself almost protectively, as Summer sat upright next to him, closing her laptop. She patted the side of her bed and he sat down, the mattress dipping beneath them. 

Summer sighed, scrolling through her phone. It was just more texts from their father, emoji induced insanity. 

“H-he really likes the cry-laughing face, huh.”

“I guess it makes him feel less shitty about guilt tripping me,” said Summer, clicking the lock button and dropping the phone to the bed. She leaned back on her hands, her lashes lowering as she sighed. “This sucks, Morty.”

“Yeah...”

“It was totally annoying it when they would fight all the time, but I dunno....” She looked down as she scratched at a loose thread on her comforter. “This just really fucking sucks.”

Morty didn’t say anything. 

“It’s just weird. It’s weird without Dad here,” she murmured, leaning her head on his shoulder. Her hair tickled his cheek. “Sometimes I think it’d just be easier if I never had to see or hear from him again, but— I still wish he was here.”

He settled his head gently on top of hers. “Yeah. I know, Summer.”

* * *

It was nighttime. He’d laid awake until he was certain Mom had passed out drunk, Summer out with her friends for the night. He’d waited until he couldn’t stand it anymore, until it was too late to change his mind, and found himself standing outside his grandfather’s bedroom, his palm flat on the door. 

Morty didn’t knock. He never knocked. He turned the handle, slipping inside. 

Rick looked up at him from the bed, his neck propped up on his lumpy pillow. He wasn’t wearing his lab coat, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to the elbows, and he wasn’t wearing shoes. He looked relaxed. He looked drunk. He had his ankles crossed as he looked down at the tiny TV at the foot of the bed, watching some interdimensional TV in an alien language Morty couldn’t understand.

“Hey, Rick,” said Morty. The light from the screen washed over the side of his face, sickly and yellow.

Rick looked at him expectantly. He took one last slug off his beer, before placing the bottle on the floor. 

“Morty.”

He started forward. Don’t think about it. Morty’s knee hit the edge of the cot, falling forward onto his hands on either side of Rick’s hips. He crawled up the length of his grandfather’s lanky body, _don’t think about it_ , crushing his face into his chest. Arms looped around him, locking him in place.

Pressed into Rick’s chest, he breathed in deep, the scent of formaldehyde and rubbing alcohol permeating his senses. He stared at the other wall, at all the boxes stacked in messy columns, the diagrams, the cans and bottles that went up and up. Rick’s fingers dug into his back.

“I’m lonely, Rick,” he mumbled.

“It's a a pretty big, lonely existence out there, Morty.”

For a moment, he listened to Rick’s uneven heartbeat. It was now or never. Morty pushed up onto one arm, looking down at his grandfather’s old, haggard face. He tried to understand. He wasn’t smart enough, or experienced enough, but if he’d learned anything it was that nothing mattered. Not unless you wanted it to. 

He leaned down and pressed his mouth against his grandpa’s, and he tried not to think about it. He pulled back before Rick could react, looking down at him with a darkness he didn’t recognize in himself.

“I would’ve n-never had to know, if it wasn’t for you.”

Rick looked back at him with a horrible understanding, uncharacteristically quiet for once. They both knew he was right.

He tensed up as Rick’s hand crawled down his sides, cradling his hips. His fingers slipped into his pajama bottoms, his fingers making his skin prickle. He’d never had a real person touch him like this. Fear curled tight and low in his belly. Despite everything, he didn’t want to let his grandpa down.

“C’mere, baby,” murmured Rick, his other hand sliding into Morty’s hair. He eased him down, mouthing at the soft line of Morty’s jawline. “I’m not gonna hurt you, Morty.”

His grandfather was kissing his neck and he was trying to hold his breath. He could practically feel the burn of ethanol on Rick’s mouth, tainting his skin as he worked his way lower, his hands slipping under Morty’s thin nightshirt. 

This was so wrong. He knew it was wrong. He knew if Mom found out about it, it might be the only thing that would ever make her forsake her beloved father. _Might_. He could never tell Summer about it, she would look at him differently, and Dad would probably take it as the worst kind of personal attack.

Rick’s fingers hooked under his shirt, pulling it over and off his bony shoulders. His hands dipped underneath his sleeping pants, and soon he was out of those too. Sitting there in his underwear, balanced precariously on Rick’s thighs, whatever sense of bravery he had possessed started to flag. With Rick looking at him _like that,_ he averted his eyes nervously, reaching for his grandpa’s shirt to try to distract himself. 

His hands were knocked away. “No. Just— just let me look at you, Morty.”

Morty’s eyebrows drew in, and he allowed himself to peek at Rick’s face. He watched as his eyes traced down the length of his sternum, like he was counting every one of his shallow breaths, a hand sliding up his ribcage to feel it out. The jagged nail of his thumb grazed his nipple and Morty jumped, producing a raspy chuckle out of Rick. 

He didn’t know why he was looking so closely. There were infinite versions of him out there to look at. He should’ve been tired of it, by now.

Rick’s hands moved lower, framing his skinny waist. Thumbs settling on the sharp points of his hipbones, the tips of his fingers dug into the high points of his ass. Morty moaned, unable to help it, pressing his hips down just to have a little bit of pressure. His face started to heat as Rick gave a low, dirty laugh, sitting upright. Morty sat back, giving him room, but Rick didn’t let him go too far.

“You have no fucking idea how long I waited for you, baby.”

Sweat started at his temple. That picture on the wall of himself as an infant with his Grandpa Rick... he didn’t want to know. How many dimensions, how many realities Rick had crossed to find this version of him, this version that would come to him out of desperation, _he didn’t want to know._

Morty leaned forward until their foreheads grazed, delicately finding his mouth, his inexperience holding him back. It didn’t last long, Rick’s patience seemingly at its tattered end, as he quickly found himself on his back. The blanket felt raw on his bare skin, panic rising in his chest as he realized how trapped he was. Still, every other sensation flew out the window when Rick touched his cock. His back arched off the bed, and he let out a moan, his voice cracking with the sudden realization of how intense it felt.

Morty moved to cover his face, but Rick’s long forearm came to pin his upper arms to the bed. He wrapped his hands around either side of Rick’s forearm, clinging on for dear life. 

“Rick!”

“Jesus, Morty, is this all it’s gonna take for you? A lousy handjob?” 

“D-d-don’t make fun of me!” He wasn’t sure he meant it, considering the words were making his dick pulse against his grandfather’s rough hand. “I’ve— I’ve never done this before!”

“I know that. I know everything about you.” He recoiled as Rick belched wetly in his face, a fleck of saliva landing on his lower lip. Morty clenched his eyes shut, at least until Rick pressed down on his chest, making him strain to breathe. “Look at me, Morty.”

He forced himself to hold his gaze, as Rick’s hand started to move over his erection. It was almost painfully dry, unpleasant, but it was another person’s hand than his own. He couldn’t help but push his hips into it, his legs starting to shake at how nervous he was. He didn’t want to look stupid, but Rick always made him look stupid, feel stupid, _he was so stupid._

“Shh, hey, it’s okay,” Rick murmured above him, releasing the hold over his chest and shoulders to stroke his cheek. He didn’t realize he’d been whining low in his throat. He wasn’t sure if it was from fear or anticipation. “It’s okay, Morty. I’m here.”

Rick went up to his elbows, slinking lower. He didn’t waste time touching Morty anywhere else, even if his body was primed for it in anticipation. Still wearing all his clothes, the fabric of his sleeves were soft against the skin of Morty’s inner thighs as he made space for himself between them. “You can embarrass yourself as much as you like. Kinda— kinda works for me.”

When Rick’s mouth closed over the head of his cock through his underwear it was all he could to not immediately shoot off into his mouth. His hands snapped down to grab a handful of Rick’s untamed hair, like he could control him at all. “O-oh-oh, jeez, _Rick—”_

Sliding his hands under the elastic through one of the leg holes, Rick just moved it to the side, hooking it under his sac. When his mouth hit bare flesh, Morty wanted to die a little.

His grandfather was obviously experienced. It felt incredible, Rick’s mouth hot and sucking around him, his hands deftly working his balls. He wanted to think of Jessica, of anything else, wanted to close his eyes and pretend he was far away but it wouldn’t change the fact that it was _Rick._ He already felt close to coming, it was so pathetic, but at least then it would be over.

Rick sucked back a strand of saliva, pulling away from the tip of his cock. He slid a finger under the elastic band of his plain, white underwear, ripping it clear off Morty’s body. Morty felt himself swallow, intimidated, but hornier than he had any right to be. Nobody had ever wanted him like this.

Rick made a filthy noise, drawing a finger into his mouth. Every alarm bell started ringing in Morty’s head as he watched the hand disappear beneath him. 

He knew he just had to relax. He knew how this felt. He’d had bigger inside him, when he was even younger, at Rick’s behest. He drew in a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the feeling of Rick’s tongue sliding up the underside of his erection, and not the pad of a finger pressing against his ass. 

“Spread— spread your legs for me, Morty. Open ‘em up real wide, yeah.”

He didn’t move for a moment, unsure. Then, there was a threatening hint of teeth, and Morty’s knees pulled back and apart almost reflexively. He hooked his fingers beneath his thighs, staring up at the ceiling, his face hot and sweaty. “Yeah— yeah, that’s it, baby. You look perfect. You were _made_ for this.” 

The praise made his toes curl. _Perfect._ He felt himself start to open as Rick pressed a finger inside, his mouth taking him again, Morty’s back arching off the bed as he was overwhelmed. It barely took more than a minute of steady, constant motion, and he was coming into his grandpa’s waiting mouth, the strength of it making his the muscles in his legs tighten to the point where it hurt. 

“Rick,” he said, weakly. Rick moved up over him, one hand still inside his body as the other moved up to cup his jaw. “Rick, that was— I-I-I—” He cut off in a choke, his jaw pried apart by a brutal hand. Horrified, he had no choice but to open for the gob of cum and phlegm Rick spat into his mouth. 

“Yeah, taste yourself Morty, you little freak. I know you like this, I know you love that we probably taste— _uurp_ — taste exactly the same.” His breath fanned hot over his face as Rick leaned over him, Morty’s eyes wide and straining as fingernails dug into his face. “You already know why. You and I are the _same._ You’ve got my DNA inside of you. You’re a part of me, Morty— a part I _really_ intend to hold onto.”

The hand disappeared, going to the button of Rick’s slacks. Dread settled in around Morty, his body oversensitive as Rick continued to move his finger inside of him, the other hand reaching inside of his underwear to lift out his cock. The size of it was intimidating, and it didn’t smell particularly nice even from this distance. He sure hoped Rick didn’t want to put it— _in there_. It looked like it would hurt.

“Jesus, Morty, it’s not gonna bite.” Rick reached for his wrist, tugging it down until it was touching his cock. “Just touch it.”

Morty wrapped his hand around the middle of Rick’s cock, the widest part, his eyes practically bugging out of his skull. He was doing it. His mouth fell open in concentration. It was so hot in his hand, so much thicker than his own. He started moving his hand the way he liked it on himself, maybe in hopes that he could get Rick off before it came to _that._ It really wasn’t how he’d pictured losing his virginity, but none of this was what he pictured, ever in a hundred years, a thousand years, forev— 

“What’s with the limp wrist, huh? Tighter.” Rick’s bigger hand wrapped around his own, controlling the motion, showing him the slower place, the stronger grip he liked. “That’s more like it.” 

Once he was satisfied with it, he planted his free hand down on one side of Morty’s face, the other still moving inside of him. He slid in another finger beside the first, the stretch uncomfortable, but not painful. Morty’s dick had started to respond again, leaking against his quivering stomach, and he whined quietly. Every nerve felt like it was on fire. “Rick, I don’t think I can—”

“You _can,_ Morty.” 

He wasn’t even allowed to look away. Rick stared him down as Morty worked his cock, steadily building to his own second awful orgasm, wrung out from somewhere deep inside of him. Morty came almost dry without even having his cock touched, the noises he made stilted and pathetic as he tried to keep quiet. “R-R- _Rick—”_

Rick kept his fingers deep inside of his grandson as he took over jacking himself off, stripping himself efficiently until he was coming all over Morty’s belly and chest, the only moment he closed his eyes.

“Oh, _ffffuuuuck—”_

For some reason he felt embarrassed, self-conscious now that he was starting to come out of his sex haze. He watched his grandfather— _his grandfather_ — pull his fingers out of his ass, and put them right in his mouth. Then, with the same hand, he was spreading the ejaculate on his chest, massaging it into his skin. Like he was marking him. 

“Just you and me, Rick and Morty, together, just— just like that, yeah.”

Morty’s eyes started to water. His lower lip shook. He drew in a sharp, gasping breath, and his grandpa finally looked at his face.

Rick sat back. Morty let his feet come down on the bed, on either side of his grandfather. Rick looked at him for awhile longer, at the panting, shaking mess he was on the bed, before he abruptly stood up. He tucked himself back into his pants, zipping himself up. Morty watched him walk the short distance to the door, before he was putting on his lab coat.

Morty pulled himself up onto his elbows, confused. “R-Rick? Where are you going?”

“Don’t go anywhere,” said Rick, in lieu of an answer. Rick didn’t look at him. “Don’t— don’t you ever go anywhere.”

He walked out the door, closing it softly behind him. 

Five minutes. Ten minutes. Morty didn’t move. Half an hour. One hour. He didn’t move, despite how sticky and increasingly sad he felt.

That feeling grew in his chest. The one that was so hard for him to control once it took hold, that had made it worryingly easy to kill without hesitation, that made him pull the trigger of a gun pointed at his grandfather’s forehead.

Despite his instructions not to, Morty got up. His underwear was a lost cause, torn and covered in spit. Red faced, he tucked it under Rick’s mattress, where he wouldn’t immediately find it. Once satisfied with the placement, he promptly fled back to his room.

He didn’t wet the bed that night, or any night after.

* * *

Three days later, Rick came home. Through the front door, of all things.

“Grandpa Rick!” Summer was the only one who went to the door to meet him. Morty sat at the table, waiting.

Mom pasted on a nervous smile as he stepped into the dining room, her hand shaking around her water glass as she held onto it for dear life. “Dad! Where have you _been_ these past few days, we were—”

“Sweetie,” Rick said, blandly. His eyes fell on the unwanted guest in his chair, before flicking to Morty. “What the— _eurrp_ — what the _fuck_ is he doing here?”

“Now, Rick,” said Dad, in what he probably thought was a firm voice, “I’m a part of this family even if Beth and I are working through our—”

“—are still getting a divorce,” finished Beth. She glanced nervously around the table, to where Summer was pretending to look at her phone, and Morty was still staring straight ahead at Rick. “It’s just, the kids were having such a hard time, and I didn’t know where you were s-so I called Jerry and we talked about it and we figured tolerating— _having_ — a family dinner night once a week would help the transition process.”

“It was Morty’s idea,” said Dad. He reached a hand over, ruffling Morty’s hair, like he didn’t even notice the staredown going on, the tension in the room. Morty moved away from the touch, only a little, Dad's hand dropping to his shoulder. “You know a boy needs his father.”

Rick slowly lowered himself down into the chair at the end of the table. He didn’t lose Morty’s gaze.

“Are you hungry, Dad?” said Mom, slowly.

“Starving,” he said. His fingers gripped the edge of the table.

Mom was already up, moving towards the kitchen. “I’ll fix you a plate.”

Morty smiled, but it was strained. “I j-just wanted to find a way for _all_ of us to be together, y’know? That’s all I want.”

Mom slid a plate piled high with spaghetti in front of him, dripping with dark, red sauce. Rick threaded his fingers together, like he didn’t even notice it, his eyes solely directed at Morty. 

She retook her spot nervously to the side of him, reaching for her own fork. “Dad?”

Summer looked up from her phone. She glanced around the table, landing back on Rick. “Everything okay, Grandpa?”

Morty’s smile faded, but he didn’t look away.

Dad reached over for the small wicker basket in the center of the table, nudging it towards him like a peace offering. “Breadstick?”

He didn’t even look. Didn't acknowledge him. It was like he couldn't see anything else.

Chin tipped down, Morty looked up at him through his lashes as he went back to his own plate, taking a messy forkful of noodles into his mouth. Sauce ended up all over his lips, his tongue sliding out to lick it up. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, staring at Rick with purpose.

Rick's face pulled in like he was about to get angry. Then, he sighed. He reached for a goddamn breadstick.

* * *

“You’ve got some fucking nerve, Morty. Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing. I'm not impressed by you.”

Morty closed the door behind him, then walked the short distance to where Rick was sitting at his workbench, facing away from him. He heard Rick put down his tools, turning to look at him as Morty came in close, his head down. He didn’t look murderous, at the very least. He _did_ , however, look a little impressed.

“Yeah, well, Rick— l-l-learned from the best.”

Rick chuckled, shaking his head. His fingers hooked through Morty’s belt loops, dragging him to stand between his knees. With his other hand, he gripped Morty’s chin, forcing him to look up at him. 

Summer was upstairs on the phone, Mom reading a book alone in the living room. Dad didn’t live there anymore, but he’d hugged Morty when he left, and didn’t linger when he let go.

They were alone together.

“Don’t think this means you’re off the hook. You opened Pandora’s box, M— _oourgh_ —orty. You can’t close that shit up again.”

“I know, Rick,” he said, gingerly setting his hands on his grandfather’s shoulders to steady himself. Rick’s hand let go of his chin, sliding down to cup the side of his neck. He could feel his blood pounding at his pulse, how Rick’s hand moved to cup the front of his throat, like a collar.

He stepped back as Rick stood up, invading his space. His grandfather reached into his lab coat, retrieving his portal gun, which he promptly fired. Morty looked into the glowing spiral, his breath catching in his chest.

“Wh-where are you going, Rick?” 

“Where am I— it's where _we_ are going, Morty.”

“Okay, then, Rick. Where are we going?”

Rick shrugged, turning. “Y’know. Wherever.”

“Wherever?”

“Wherever, whatever, _when_ ever— I don't care. I don't give a shit.” 

“Yeah,” said Morty, distantly. He smiled. “I know.”

Rick’s hand settled on his shoulder, holding him as he stood on the precipice from one world into the next.

“It doesn’t matter where we go, Morty. Just— anywhere but here,” said Rick, pulling him in.

The portal closed, leaving no trace of their existence behind.

**Author's Note:**

> This was released before S03E04.
> 
> \- laskofresho


End file.
